The fact is undoubted; but the means which they employed are uncertain.

It appears most probable that this great privilege was the price of their military services; for they held a high place in the victorious armies of Charlemagne; and Turpin, the old French romancer, alluding to the popular traditions of his time, represents the warriors of Friesland as endowed with the most heroic valor.
These rights, which the Frisons secured, according to their own statements, from Charlemagne, but most undoubtedly from some one or other of the earliest emperors, consisted, first, in the freedom of every order of citizens; secondly, in the right of property--a right which admitted no authority of the sovereign to violate by confiscation, except in cases of downright treason; thirdly, in the privilege of trial by none but native judges, and according to their national usages; fourthly, in a very narrow limitation of the military services which they owed to the king; fifthly, in the hereditary title to feudal property, in direct line, on payment of certain dues or rents.

These five principal articles sufficed to render Friesland, in its political aspect, totally different from the other portions of the monarchy.

Their privileges secured, their property inviolable, their duties limited, the Frisons were altogether free from the servitude which weighed down France.

It will soon be seen that these special advantages produced a government nearly analogous to that which Magna Charta was the means of founding at a later period in England.
The successors of Charlemagne chiefly signalized their authority by lavishing donations of all kinds on the church.